The apocalyptic future shown in sci-fi films--the ones where robots have gain consciousness and destroy humanity--is not one you need to worry about according to a report from the United States Department of Defense. The document, produced by JASON--an independent advisory group comprised of scientists and experts that brief the government on matters of science and technology--outlines trends in the field of artificial intelligence as it pertains to the U.S. military. According to the report, most computer scientists believe the possible threats posed by AI to be "at best uninformed" and those fears "do not align with the most rapidly advancing current research directions of AI as a field." It instead says these existential fears stem from a very particular--and small--part of the field of research called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which is defined as an AI that can successfully perform any intellectual task that a human can. The report argues we are unlikely to see the reality of an AGI come from the current artificial intelligence research and the concept "has high visibility, disproportionate to its size or present level of success."

Donald Trump has promised to "unlock the mysteries of space" in his time as President. The commitment came as one of a range of vague commitments made as part of his inauguration speech. Following a long passage in which he berated politicians for talking too much, President Trump said that "The time for empty talk is over". "Now arrives the hour of action," he said. From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater.

"Accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities will enable automation of some tasks that have long required human labor," notes the White House report in its opening paragraph. "These transformations will open up new opportunities for individuals, the economy, and society, but they have the potential to disrupt the current livelihoods of millions of Americans. Whether AI leads to unemployment and increases in inequality over the long-run depends not only on the technology itself but also on the institutions and policies that are in place." How strongly will AI disrupt the US workforce? Is this time different from past technological disruptions?

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. This virtual reality film transports you to Boston Dynamics' headquarters and puts you right next to SpotMini (they have four of them!) and Atlas as they walk, run, and playfully crash into each other. It's really cool footage, even if you get totally sick like we did.

On May 7, 2016, Joshua Brown made a grim entry in the annals of technological history. The 40-year-old Ohio resident, driving a Tesla Model S, slammed into the side of a tractor trailer turning across his path on a divided highway in central Florida, becoming the first person to die in a partially autonomous car. Brown's Tesla was in "Autopilot" mode at the time of the crash, and neither human nor computer hit the brakes. The grisly collision peeled the roof off the car and raised concerns about the safety of semi-autonomous systems, and the way in which Tesla had delivered the feature to customers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into how Autopilot works and its role in the Florida crash, and on Thursday published its findings.

Last year, US Army-funded plans for a flexible exosuit designed to help soldiers carry heavy loads were revealed. Now, a new study has shown exactly how much energy the soft exosuit can save. Results published in a new paper show the suit reduces the effort it takes to walk by 23 per cent, by assisting the wearer's ankles and hips every time they take a step. The suit reduces the effort it takes to walk by 23 per cent, by assisting the wearer's ankles and hips every time they take a step. The Harvard suit comprises a waist belt, two thigh pieces and two calf straps, connected by cables to two motors mounted on a backpack.

The first FDA approval for a machine learning application to be used in a clinical setting is a big step forward for AI and machine learning in healthcare and industry as a whole. Arterys's medical imaging platform has been approved to be put into use to help doctors diagnose heart problems. It uses a self-teaching artificial neural network which has learned from 1,000 cases so far, and will continue to improve its knowledge and understanding of how the heart works with each new case it examines. In order to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it had to pass tests to show it can produce results at least as accurately as humans are currently able to. The key difference though is that Arterys takes an average of 15 seconds to produce a result for one case, which a professional human analyst would expect to spend between 30 minutes to an hour working on. Arterys was founded by Fabien Beckers, John Axerio-Cilies, Albert Hsiao and Shreyas Vasanawala when they met at Stanford University with a shared passion for the transformative potential of machine learning.

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 20: President-elect Donald Trump (2ndR),and his wife Melania Trump (2ndL), are greeted by President Barack Obama and his wife first lady Michelle Obama, upon arriving at the White House on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images) President Trump takes office at a time of profound flux in the digital universe. Entire industries – from transportation to education, and everything in between – continue to be disrupted and remade by technological innovation. Automation is ascendant and threatens sustainable, meaningful job growth for humans (robots seem to be doing just fine). A few large companies – Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google – dominate a growing number of key industries and are intensely focused on commoditizing consumer data. At the same time, a small portion of the country still can't access a wired high-speed Internet connection, and millions of Americans who can access one lack the skills needed to use it productively.

The hoverbike was first built by Malloy Aeronautics, and originally carried a tiny, robotic passenger back in 2014. In 2015, Malloy partnered with an American company on a version known as the "tactical reconnaissance vehicle," or TRV, an acronym so sterile that it seemed tailor-made for the Pentagon. In 2016, the Army Research Lab showed off progress on the device, whose name was sterilized even further into the Joint Tactical Aerial Resupply Vehicle. The changing of names reflect a change in focus for the program: while it's easy to dream of camouflaged scouts hovering around the battlefield, that's a hard task, requiring that the device safely transport humans. For now, the hoverbike will be a useful, odd-shaped drone, instead of a fancy steed.

According to Deloitte's Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) predictions, more than 300m smartphones – or more than one-fifth of phones sold globally in 2017 – will come with machine learning capabilities. But in addition to smartphones, other mobile devices will be able to perform machine learning tasks even without connectivity. Machine learning capabilities are forecast to arrive in tens of millions of drones, tablets, cars, VR or AR devices, medical tools, internet of things (IoT) devices and unforeseen new technologies. "Machine learning is fascinating as it will revolutionise how we conduct simple tasks like translating content, but it also has major security and health consequences that can improve societies around the world," said Richard Howard, TMT partner at Deloitte Ireland. "For example, mobile machine learning is a strong entry point to improve responses to disaster relief, help save lives with autonomous vehicles and even turn the tide against the growing wave of cyberattacks."